Land of the Free
by Proud Olympian
Summary: He /knows/ that he is the land, that's something that has always been ingrained, that bit of knowledge that comes naturally after so long, like walking and speaking. Nonetheless, it confuses him as to why he always is like /this/ when the others remain just out of his reach. (In which America takes after his northern brother Canada and grows up a bit differently.)


He wakes up lying face down in a field full of corn, wearing a belt made of leather and a long piece of cloth that's been looped over the front of the belt, between his legs, and then over the back of the belt so his modesty remains intact. His skin is the same color as the earthy clay underneath his fingernails, and a cursory examination in a nearby puddle shows his hair and eyes are black.

He knows he is little more than a child, and he also knows he is hungry, so he steals three of the corn cobs off of their stalks before darting away into the nearby woods and up a tree to eat them. In the distance he sees smoke and the tiny figures that he assumes are people, so when he is done he acts like any other curious boy would and goes toward it.

What he finds is a small village, full of tent-like structures made of the same soft cloth that is wrapped around his belt and people wearing similar clothing to him. There is a stream nearby that some children were playing in while the adults moved in nonstop work. He smiles and runs up to the children, words he doesn't quite recognize flowing out of his mouth but he _knows _it is the language they speak. His smile fades when they don't seem to hear him and continue on with their games.

Disheartened but always hopeful, he stays around for long enough to figure out that none of the people in the tribe can see him or even hear him, but all in all he doesn't mind. If he truly concentrates he can make himself be visible to the extent where he blends in, and that lets him take food when food is served without having to hide it for fear of the visible food floating in his invisible hands. He stays for a long time after that, because the food is good and the people, from his one-sided viewpoint, are rather nice. They talk of a _Gluskabe _that he guesses is their god. He doesn't know why a god would curse him like this, but they had to come into existence somehow, didn't they?

And then the colors of the trees begins to change, the water becomes too cold to play in without fear of illness, the wind blows cold and menacing through the withered cornstalks.

The tribe takes down their tents and follows the animals that they eat. He follows the tribe.

When their chief dies, he attends the ceremonies customary for one so elevated and respected, and he cries with the rest of them. While he never knew the man, he seemed to be good. The next chief is the man's son.

He knows something is wrong when he watches the former chief's wife pass on, and then their son, and his son's wife, and then _his _son and _his_ wife, while he looks the same age as he did when he woke up so many moons ago.

He ignores it. The tribe continues to move when the cold starts coming in. He continues to follow the tribe.

* * *

He doesn't know how long it's been since he first woke up, only that there have been several sons since that first chief, enough that he has lost count, and people are starting to tell stories about him.

"There is a boy," the elders say. "A spirit, a guardian of the tribe."

There have been chiefs who look at them as though they are foolish, but most listen.

"How do you know he is a guardian?" they ask.

"He guards us," the elders reply. "He is the land."

_I am the land_, he thinks, and it sounds right.

* * *

The Land decides that he should be moving on, soon. There is an urge to be somewhere, and he can't explain it, but he needs to go down with the river current, to follow it. He takes one of the wooden canoes and several ears of corn and a pair of soft shoes, all the while apologizing to Gluskabe for the disruptions he will have caused come the morning. The shoes are painstakingly made and the canoes take moons to build, and to make more this close to the cold months will be troublesome at best.

He adds a hunting knife, bow, and quiver of arrows to the stolen goods before setting off.

The cold settles in, and he finds it doesn't bother him. Making fire to cook his food comes relatively easy, and he always makes sure to retrieve his arrows so he doesn't run out. The bow is strong, too, and his shoes keep his feet safe and warm.

What feels like ages later the Land finds himself standing on the shoreline, staring at the greatest expanse of water he has ever seen before in his lifetime and watching as boats begin to settle a strange colony of sorts on an island in the distance. He gets in his canoe to paddle across the turbulent waves and only just manages to make it onto the distant shoreline. He expects the men in the strange ships to look like him, and hisses and shies away when he sees them. Their faces are pale and pink and they wear far too many layers. They are loud and scare away the game and speak in strange words.

Oddly enough, the longer he listens to them talk, the more he feels like he can understand them.

The feeling is disconcerting, so he hides his canoe and takes the few possessions he has before hurrying off to the closest tribe he can find and settling in with them there.

A week later, someone sits down beside him while he eats away at some corn. He doesn't think much of it, only knows that he'll need to move eventually if the person's friends start to come over and sit down. He doesn't want them so accidentally sit on _him_.

But the old man, one of the tribe elders, he has to be, smiles and holds out what he recognizes as cornbread.

"I have seen you here for many days," the man says kindly. "One cannot live on corn alone like the birds do. Aren't you hungry?"

He can't take his eyes off the man, because _the man can see him_ and he doesn't know how to react to that.

"He... hello," he finally manages to say. The old man's smile widens.

"Aren't you hungry?" he repeats, and the Land hesitantly takes the cornbread and nibbles away a piece of it. When the man doesn't seem to mind, he quickly eats the rest, licking the crumbs away from his fingers before taking a sip of water from his pouch. The animal skin he had taken from an old fox that had gotten its leg twisted in one of his traps he had left. He had been hoping for something he could eat, but the pelt could be used and the animal was too old and too weak to be released safely back into the wild. He whittled the bones into another knife and several more arrowheads while the pelt was tightly sewn into a pouch. The seams would not leak, and he had made sure the end was narrow and stiff so that he could plug it with a cap made from beeswax.

"You... see me," he says after he has finished drinking, still stunned.

The man shifts so he is looking out at the rest of the tribe in front of them. "I have seen many things, why should I not see you?"

"No one has ever seen me," the Land insists. "Only the elders from long ago, and they say I am a spirit."

"Are you a spirit?"

"I do not know."

"Well, most know what they are, so we can assume that you are not a spirit."

The Land looks over at the old man. "The elders called me the Land. I do not know if that makes me a spirit or not, but I _am _the Land."

His firm statement seems to startle the old man, but then a wide smile breaks out on his face once again.

"Come with me, child," he says, still smiling, and holds out a hand. "Let us speak."

* * *

The Land learns a lot that day.

The man's name is Ahanu, a man of healing in the tribe. He has lived longer than most anyone else he knew of, and is considered to be very wise. He explains to the Land about how there are legends like him, at that he _is _a spirit, in a sense. He represents the land and the people on it.

"I am the Land!" the Land says proudly, and they both laugh.

"I must return now, I am old and cannot walk for as long as I used to," Ahanu says after a time.

"Wait!" the Land calls after him as he turns to leave. "The strange men, the pale ones on their large boats. Should I worry about them?"

Ahanu shakes his head. "Do not fear them, for they do not appear to bring us harm... but be wary."

* * *

The strange colonists go to war with the tribes after they accuse them of stealing a silver cup, and in retribution the tribes had killed one of the colonists while he searched for clams on the beach. The Land discovers a new ability of his – while he cannot be seen, quiet whispers serve as very compulsive suggestions, and he urges the tribes to attack the colonists as soon as their ship leaves across the sea for supplies. He does _not _like these strange men, with their odd clothes and pale faces. He does not like them and they should not be here, not on his land.

The colonists are wiped out, and the Land thinks he is safe. He still talks with Ahanu, who seems to know nothing of his part in the fighting. For some reason that makes him happy; the old man would be disappointed if he knew and the thought is strangely painful.

Two years later more colonists come back. They are nice and attempt to make trades, but the tribes they had fought before refuse to make any sort of contact. The Land remains hostile, but he doesn't push for war like he did the last time. He ignores the fact that the longer the colonist stay, the lighter his hair and skin becomes until he looks like he was caught between the two peoples, skin tan but not dark like Ahanu's and hair a dark brown that it's almost black but not quite.

The ship belonging to the pale men leaves for supplies, but as what the colonists have slowly dwindle, other tribes move in for attack. The Land figures he could try to stop them, but doesn't bother. Within a year the colonists have either fled to friendly tribes or have been wiped out, and the Land no longer feels compelled to stay in that area, so he drags out his canoe from its hiding place – he's kept it in the best condition he can – and sets off after saying goodbye to Ahanu.

He wanders for a long time after that, staying with the various tribes he comes across, but something keeps drawing him back to the coast. More pale men come, with their women and children, and they make forts despite the harsh weather. The more that come in the more his skin lightens and his hair lightens until finally he can no longer go near the tribes because he looks so _alien _to them. He frequents the streets of their towns and snatches food where he can and hides away sometimes because while his hair is bronze and his eyes reflect the sky, they _scare _him and the Land doesn't like that.

He hears that they're calling this place "the New World". Sometimes they call it "British America".

British sounds like a terse name, the Land decides. Too short, too tense. America, on the other hand, he likes, so he stops calling himself the Land and begins calling himself America.

It fits.

* * *

The people are talking of rebellion as early as what he finds are the "1600s". These strange pale men (and America needs to stop thinking of them as strange because he _is _one of them now and while it is immensely frustrating for him to have been ripped away from his roots like that he can't think about it now) have their own way of telling time, seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years... it makes his head spin, but America, while rather impatient at times, knows how to sit down and learn things just by observing. He has to, considering that nobody can see him half of the time.

A place called "England" is evidently taxing them. They have their own currency, round coins, and they pay for goods with them. America can't think as to why they don't just grow their own food and make their own wares, but he sort of agrees with them. They are on his land now, and he _is _the land, and his appearance is influenced by them and so is his way of thinking.

He still feels loyal to those tribes that had raised him so long ago, but he doubts they would trust him now.

He finds himself growing, too. He steals some laundry from a young woman and changes out of his old furs, folding them neatly as best he can before tucking them in a sack. His water skin has long since fallen apart, and his canoe is most likely far, far down the river where he will never see it again, along with his bow and arrows. But he still has the knife and some of the old arrowheads as memories, and he promises he'll find a safe home for the items soon.

He doesn't stop growing, though, and finds himself ditching clothes every ten years or so to get ones that don't wear out as fast, or ones that fit properly. People still don't notice him, and he supposes he's thankful for that because in the late 1600s they start to kill each other.

He doesn't even notice at first, the sharp pain in his stomach, he just attributes it to hunger and keeps moving onward, but then it doesn't stop, and then he sees the trials.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony is what they call it, and a small town called Salem is where it's happening. They're killing women for using magic when America can tell they haven't used magic in their lives.

It scares him more than the arrival of the pale men did because the tribes never turned on themselves like this (they went to war with each other, but never did a tribe member kill another tribe member) and so he runs and hides and waits for the pain to go away and the tears to go away. He stops crying, he stands back up, and he flees into the cities where another lonely child will blend into the background, if he even could be seen to begin with.

* * *

He meets a man named Thomas Jefferson, who catches him when he sneaks onto the massive plantation in the colony of Virginia. He'd been walking for four days and hadn't had a thing to eat, and while he had finally come to the conclusion that he was the land and that meant by default he couldn't die as long as the land remained, he was still _hungry_.

There are pies resting on the windowsill to cool, and the slaves (why are there slaves? The idea repulses him, but at the same time so many on his land support it so he can't actively rebel against it either) pay him no attention.

"And what do you think you're doing, lad?"

He spins around, pie still in his hands, to see a man standing behind him. He looks to be a middle-aged man, definitely well-off, considering where he lives, and has a gleam of intelligence in his eyes as well. America bears a liking to him instantly, but still he is wary. Stealing is illegal, and this man probably has friends in the police force.

"I... was hungry," he finally says, hating how he looks the age of twelve but cowers like a five year old confronted with a scary tale in front of the stern man.

The man raises an eyebrow. "I gathered as much. Don't you have parents, boy? What's your name?"

"Don' have parents," he finally responds. He wonders if there are others like him, other spirits to represent the land across the oceans, but casts the thought aside. This stern man is only the second one who has been able to see him in hundreds of years, so he doubts that he would be able to see someone like him, or that they would be able to see _him_.

That seems to get the man to soften, and before America can react the pie is back on the windowsill and the man has a hand on his shoulder and is leading him back towards the pathway that leads up to the front doors of the wooden building.

"...Sir?" he asks as the man opens the door.

"Don't fret, child," the man says, kneeling down so he can look Alfred in the eye. He is a very tall man, after all, and Alfred hasn't grown _that _much yet. "My name is Thomas Jefferson, and if you are hungry, then I presume you will want a full meal? Pie isn't substantial enough for a growing young man."

America thinks to Ahanu, and how the man had seen him and given him food.

"A whole meal?" he repeats dubiously, thinking of the ludicrous trades imposed on his native peoples by the pale men. "Whaddya want for it?"

The man doesn't smile, but he isn't frowning and his eyes are bright. "Your company, child, nothing more, nothing less. And perhaps you would like to meet with my wife as well, but if you are shy you don't need to."

Company.

Like... friends?

He realizes that he's never had a friend before, so smiles and nods and follows Thomas Jefferson inside. The man is true to his word and gives America a rich meal, beans and meat and potatoes with _real gravy _and then after that they each have a slice of pie, and Thomas Jefferson's wife joins them for that part of the meal and coos over how lovely a boy he is and that makes _three _people who have been able to see him in his life and he finds that he is actually enjoying himself for once.

It is beginning to get dark outside when Thomas Jefferson stands up and looks at the grandfather clock on the far wall.

"Well, look at the time!" he says, surprised. "You'd best be off then, lad."

"Don' have parents." He repeats his previous statement, all the while comparing his slight drawling tone of voice to the man's clipped, yet warm, precision.

"Ah." Thomas Jefferson nods, as though he is just remembering that fact, then looks back down at America with a scrutinizing gaze. "Am I correct in my assumption that you have no place to sleep for the night?"

He thinks of the hayloft in a nearby farm that looked rather comfy, but that doesn't technically count so he murmurs an agreement with the man.

"Well, that won't do at all. You'll stay here for the night."

* * *

Martha brings him clothes in the morning, borrowed from one of the slave children, smiling all the while, and then tells him they will be eating breakfast downstairs when he is ready to join them. He tugs the clothes on before grabbing his precious bag and hurrying down the stairs, sliding into his seat at the table just before Thomas Jefferson walks in.

"'Lo, Thomas Jefferson sir," he says when it occurs to him that he should be respectful to the man that gave him food and shelter. Isn't that what the elders taught? Respect?

Thomas Jefferson just laughs. "No need to be so formal, dear boy, especially not so early in the morning. Mr Jefferson will do."

"Okay Mr Jefferson," he replies, and the meal continues without much of a problem, until they finally remember that he hasn't told them his name and pester him about it.

"Don' have a name," he replies, because he isn't sure how they'll react if he tells them that he is _America _and he can't help but think of anyone who showed signs of being abnormal hanging from the trees, limply swinging in their nooses while Salem continued on.

Martha Jefferson tuts and tells him that he _must _have a name, and then starts a scholarly debate he can't follow between the pair and names are flung back and forth until they turn to him with a smile.

"Alfred Jones," she tells him proudly. "A solid name, that is."

"Martha, dear, he needs a middle name..."

They return to their bickering and while Alfred – Alfred sounds similar to America and Ahanu, so he supposes that it's an okay name – can't help but smile he also thinks that _he _should have a choice in his own name, shouldn't he?

"F," he says loudly, and they stop. "Alfred F. Jones."

"But what does the F stand for, dear?" Martha asks kindly, she always talks kindly, and Alfred likes that.

"The F is for the fun of it," he replies with a smile, and they both laugh.

"Alfred F. Jones it is, then!"

* * *

He frequents the plantation often. Martha Jefferson, he comes to realize, has had four children before this, but only one is currently alive, and she is expecting a fifth. He isn't sure why the news makes him sad – perhaps it is because he, as the land, would never have a mother like that.

He also discovers that Mr Jefferson is a working man in the sense that he rarely takes a break to work. Alfred doesn't need as much sleep, so he'll be awake at night thinking and hear the patter of footsteps on the floor above him as Mr Jefferson paces in his office.

"What are you doing?" he asks one day, nearly scaring the man out of his wits.

"Alfred, why are you awake at such an hour?" Mr Jefferson demands to know, looking him in the eye.

He's grown in the time that he's spent here. Mr Jefferson attempts to teach him, appalled that a boy his age knows nothing of how to read or write, and he helps Martha with her children. He thinks they might notice that he grows slowly, because it's been nearly ten years and he doesn't look a day over sixteen, but they never comment on it. He's tall, though, and by this point he can look Mr Jefferson squarely in the eye because they're now the same height.

"I couldn't sleep," he responds. His accent has changed too, more formal now, yet still rugged, and the last of the brown has faded from his hair and skin until he is paler than a rose petal and his hair looks like the wheat in the fields outside his window.

"Hmm."

Mr Jefferson turns back to his pacing, and Alfred waits for him to speak. He knows not to interrupt when the man is thinking.

"Alfred?"

"Yes, Mr Jefferson?"

"Why can nobody see you?"

Mr Jefferson stops pacing and fixes the Land with a shrewd look, and he feels exactly like he did all those years and years and years ago when Ahanu sat down and handed him a piece of bread.

"Sir?"

"I'm not mad, boy, I'm curious! The slaves don't understand why they clean an unused guest room every day, and I don't have an answer to give them. I've seen you walk through the streets and not a soul notices. I'm curious, my boy!"

And America decides that Mr Jefferson has been kind to him for the past ten years so he sits down and explains everything. _Everything, _from waking up far away in the fields to traveling down to the strange colony that disappeared when the boat left for more supplies, to the towns that hung their own children out of terror.

"And I don't know why no one can see me," he says. "Ahanu could see me. You can see me, and Martha can see me. But no one else can see me, and I'm okay with that. I just don't know why."

Mr Jefferson stares at him for a while. "You personify the land on which we walk?"

America nods. "Yes, sir."

And Mr Jefferson laughs. "Goodness, you shouldn't be calling _me_ sir! It is I who should say that to you!" America's eyes widen.

"No, sir- I mean, Mr Jefferson, you don't need to-"

"The land!" Mr Jefferson repeats with a smile. "They call you a she, you know. America and her colonies." Alfred fights back a blush and instead chooses to glare. "The land... well, then, I suppose I should call you America?"

"No," he repeats. "I like Alfred just fine, sir. Alfred F. Jones, that's the name you gave me and that's the name I like."

"If that is what you like, Alfred, then that is what I shall call you. But back to your original question, there _is _something you could help me with... a group of men, you see, myself included, are creating our own government, separate from England..."

Alfred read what Mr Jefferson has written of the Declaration of Independence and the words are so beautiful that he needs to sit down because his legs have gone weak and he can't get the ridiculous grin off of his face for the next few days.

_Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..._

* * *

He leaves Mr Jefferson's house because he feels the urge to go to Boston, and he bids the wonderful family farewell and promises to visit soon. He stays in the heart of the rebellion, he dumps the tea into the harbor, and he screams when his people are massacred by British troops when the mob took over.

He sees a man, a man in fancy British clothes, one day. Shiny buckles and a feather in his wide hat and a smooth velvet coat that makes his well-loved clothes from Martha seem like rags in comparison. He walks up to the man, wondering why he's just _standing _there, but the man doesn't see him or answer him and continues to talk to himself, his rather thick eyebrows bunching together like caterpillars.

"Damn colonies," he mutters, and America bristles. That's _his _colonies this man is talking about, he won't stand to have them spoken about like that! "After everything I've done for them? Rebellion, all because of a few taxes, I need money too, and it's not as if they're _that _high... pah, rebellion against the Crown? Against me, England? Bloody fools, they don't stand a chance..."

"You're a country?" America blurts, but the man doesn't hear him, and continues muttering as he walks away.

America doesn't exactly feel hopeful, knowing that there are others like him that can't see him, but it's still a small comfort.

* * *

He joins the army. If he concentrates, people can see him, he's learned that now, but he can also blend away into the background so nobody notices. It makes good for stealth and avoiding enemy fire. He's there when they sign the Declaration at Mr Jefferson's request, he's there when they finally drive the British off their land for good.

And he feels stronger, feels _free_.

The F, he decides, can still be for the fun of it, but he rather likes that it also stands for _freedom_.

He works with the farmers, he builds, he holds Mr Jefferson (he's never been able to bring himself to call the man Thomas) as he sobs over his wife's death and when he's finally alone lets his own tears fall. He watches as the first President of the United States of America (_he is the Land_) enters office, steps down for the next man, lives out the rest of his life on his plantation. Watches as the second president does the same, then the third, and the fourth, sheds a single tear at Mr Jefferson's funeral.

He goes out west with Lewis and Clark after the Louisiana purchase, he regroups with the native tribes and watches everyone's eyes grow wide in awe when he knows each and every language for the groups they come across. He sees the Pacific Ocean for the first time in his life and its _beautiful_.

He comes back because he feels the urge to and then England is trying to take the colonies from him again (although he doesn't see the man with the thick eyebrows this time) and then he's _screaming _when they come from the north and burn his capital and his White House.

"What are you doing?" he shouts at the man standing a little ways away and watching the men burn down the magnificent building.

To his surprise, the man turns around.

"You shouldn't be here," he says softly (and are his eyes violet?), taking a couple steps forward so he can see Alfred better in the flickering light of the fire.

"What are you _doing_?" he repeats, only to fall forward as a large part of the building collapses and his chest throbs in pain. The man catches him and the last thing he sees before he drifts into the embrace of unconsciousness is those concerned violet eyes.

* * *

He wakes up in a bed with the strange man dozing in a chair next to him. It's his house, which is odd, considering that the man didn't know who he was, much less where his large colonial home that he had built with his own two hands (and by now he looks nineteen and is taller that he's ever been and his skin is tanned and well worn with laugh lines and callouses from the work he's done and the effort his people have put into this place because _he is the land_) would be, but he chooses to ignore it for now.

"...Why?" he asks weakly when the man stirs and violet eyes meet cerulean blue.

"When... when we burned the White House, it hurt you," the man says softly, even quieter than America's whisper of a voice, and suddenly his eyes make America's stomach churn so he focuses on a wayward curl of hair on the man's head. "That doesn't happen to normal people."

"I've never been normal," he rasps in reply.

The man continues to look at him. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my idea. My... my boss, he made me, and I can't disobey him. Countries can't disobey their leaders."

Cerulean eyes snap back to violet ones.

"You're... you're like me?" he breathes, and then even though his face is badly burned along with his chest and talking hurts he breaks out into a wide grin.

"Yeah," the man replies. "I'm Canada. You're... America, right?"

America nods, still smiling.

"England and France talk about you sometimes," Canada says. "Or, well, the lack of you. They forget about me a lot but they're confused that since you're your own country you should have a representation like the rest of us."

"There's... more?"

Canada (or Matthew Williams, if you want to be informal about it) tells him about the countries around the world, how France and England raised him and that there were others too, Prussia and Germany and Italy and dozens of others.

"I just don't understand why nobody's ever heard of you," he finishes with.

America tries to shrug, then winces at the pain. "Not a lot of people have ever been able to see me before. Before I figured out how to make myself semi-visible, it was just one man, a native named Ahanu. And then after that it was Mr Jefferson and his family, which makes you the third."

Canada blinks. "Sounds an awful lot like me at times."

America smiles. "Before the colonists came, I suppose we would have been brothers."

"Mmm. Brothers..."

* * *

Canada leaves shortly after – they are at war, but he is grateful to the man. It isn't as if either of them _want _to fight, war hurts them just like it hurts the people and the land, but when everything is said and done they make sure to keep in something resembling contact via letters every now and again.

And then one day America collapses in his home in Massachusetts and he's _screaming _because he can feel his states seceding and his mind fragmenting into shards and the people going to war against each other and _it hurts make it stop make it stop make it stop_.

President Lincoln (his leaders can see him, obviously, takes him and hides him away in the recesses of the White House and forbids the guards to anyone but specific aides in, including himself unless it's an extreme emergency. America spends the next few years screaming at the demons surrounding him (and he's loud enough people see him for once) until finally _finally _his eyes fly open and he can _breathe_.

It doesn't take long to wriggle out of the leather straps they have holding him down so he doesn't hurt himself or anyone (when did he get so thin? He can count his ribs) and he grabs his old jacket off the pile of folded clothes in the corner because he's _cold _and then he opens the door. The guards nearly jump out of their skin and he wonders how he looks but he just stares at them with a haunted expression that's part scared and part pleading.

"Is it over?" he croaks. "Please... is it over?"

They hurry him to the President, and when he confirms what America is too scared to hope to be true the Land falls down on the floor and sobs because he's the _United States of America _and if he isn't united then what good is he?

* * *

He goes to Canada for some sort of formal dinner type thing in 1872, still gaunt and haggard and not entirely recovered from the bloody war that took more lives than he had ever thought possible. The two not-quite-brothers talk quietly with one another and Matthew says that a few people are sort of noticing him at this dinner and that's got to be a good thing, right?

America smiles and nods, but his heart isn't in it.

He _knows_ that he is the land, that's something that has always been ingrained, that bit of knowledge that comes naturally after so long, like walking and speaking. Nonetheless, it confuses him as to why he always is like _this_ when the others remain just out of his reach. Why can't he be recognized?

He isn't sure if he even wants to be, if all that attention brings is bloodshed.

* * *

The Great War, that war to end all other wars, hits, and he joins the army again and fights in the trenches overseas and chokes on the gas and watches good men fall and die and succumb to shell-shock, wishes them goodnight before finding them cold and still the next morning when he wakes up and they don't.

And then it's over and he's partying (and maybe he doesn't do quite as good a job at kicking the alcohol habit as he'd hoped but Matthew's always around if he needs a drink) and his country is happy and the economy is roaring and he feels _great_. There are celebrities and movies and so much dancing and he feels like he's at the top of the world.

Good things never last, though, he knows that, and yet it _hurts _when everything suddenly grinds to a screeching halt and the country is starving and his people are crying and there are immigrants and colonizations out west and more and more new states and he can't do a thing to help. So he tightens his belt and gives away what he can to people that need it (and he gives away some of what he can't as well because he can't die even though his stomach is in _so much pain _and his head is spinning and he wakes up every morning with blurry eyes and his tongue feeling like leather in his mouth). He builds the railroads and he helps his people and he drags himself along.

He is the land, he won't give up because he's tired. He is America, and he doesn't quit. He is Alfred F. Jones and he'll keep fighting until the very end.

He knows that all bad things eventually have to take a turn for the better, so things are slowly climbing up and Europe is at war with everyone _again _(can't he leave them alone for five minutes without something happening) and so much for the war to end all wars.

He talks with Matthew and they agree that they can't join in the war effort – they both still have their own problems going on and Alfred is just barely climbing out of the hole his economy left him in and he can't just jump at England's beck and call, isn't that why he left in the first place?

And then the West explodes with problems and he feels like he's the only sane person while everything else has gone to hell in a flowery handbasket around him – and _then _Japan, the bastard, stabs him in the back and that's all he needs to jump into action, grab his leather aviator's jacket and take off for England.

* * *

He sees the enemy soldier raising his gun before any of the armed guards do, and tackles Britain to the ground as an echoing _crack _rings out. There are screams and the front of his shirt feels oddly wet and why does the man holding him have caterpillars on his face...?

He wakes up to see two concerned countries looking down at him, and he recognizes England's thick eyebrows from that day so very long ago in Boston. The other he knows to be France, courtesy of photos and stories from Matthew.

"Don't suppose you remember me, do ya?" he rasps, gaining their attention and _they can see him _and it makes him rather happy. "Heh, I remember you, though, Iggy... you were in Boston, and you had a feather in your hat and shiny buckles on your shoes... and you were muttering 'bout how your colonies were ungrateful. Ya couldn't see me, though, even though I yelled at you not to insult my people..."

He's tired, so he lets himself drift back into sleep, missing the shared glance between the two nations.

When he wakes up again he's been transported back to a hospital and Matthew is there, although the doctor in the room doesn't seem to notice him.

"Hey Al," he says in that soft voice of his, and it makes him smile. "I hear someone finally saw you."

Alfred F. Jones laughs softly. "Took them long enough, didn't it?"

* * *

He goes through the Cold War, which is a headache that lasts about a decade and leaves him paranoid and shaking to the point where he looks like he's constantly bouncing around, and he flies with the other countries to drop packages past the blockade around Berlin. He meets with his bosses when he needs to and occasionally sends a message to the nations via Matthew and does his best, because what he does is keep pushing forwards despite the odds. The economy dips and people seem to hate him a lot these days, but not always, and he's still got Matthew at his side so everything's okay.

He is the Land. He represents the people (_and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States_)and he will always do what he can to help them. Even if it means going hungry for a while, even if it means destroying his budget or coming up with some crazy scheme to send a man to the moon.

He is Alfred F. Jones. He has houses scattered throughout the various states, and he makes sure to spend time in all of them regularly just to make sure they don't fall into disrepair. He's rather partial to the ones in Virginia and Massachusetts, however, and also the one in New York. His files are classified by the government; if anyone asks why a nineteen year old boy can be seen frequenting the White House (or that one time where he has to grab the President by his tie and shout some sense into him) they're just told that he's here on an internship. People assume his family are higher-ups in the government. Alfred just smiles and lets them think what they will.

Most importantly, he is _America_. Sometimes overlooked, passed over in thought and mention, scoffed at and ridiculed and occasionally ignored. He doesn't mind (he remembers the first time he finally got to come to a World Meeting and the sheer joy that he felt makes his head spin), because he needs the quiet time to himself and even though more people see him now that he's a superpower he still takes after his neighbor to the north in that he fades away. He represents the land and the people and freedom (_O, say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!_) and so much _more_.

Truth be told, he's always found titles and declarations of status to be a bit ridiculous. It doesn't matter what he's called, what matters is that he's _there _and he'll _always _be there for his people. What more could he ask for than that?

* * *

**I felt like writing a different America then the one we generally see, and then I wondered what it would have been like if he turned out to be more like his northern brother Canada or what might have changed if England had never found the young colony and he had to raise himself... and so, this. If something's confusing, feel free to drop a PM or review and I'll do my best to clarify. As always, I hope you enjoy!**


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